JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARBULLETIN.COM
Firefighters battled a two-alarm fire at this apartment complex on Piikoi Street after being alerted at about 2:18 p.m. yesterday, with the blaze brought under control by 2:33 p.m.
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Man gets ill from smoke in effort to douse blaze
The resident manager fought the fire in his Piikoi apartment unit
The 58-year-old resident manager of a Piikoi Street apartment building was taken by ambulance to Kuakini Medical Center in serious but stable condition with smoke inhalation yesterday after he tried to put out a fire in his second-floor unit.
Neighbor John Mortz said he ran downstairs after smoke started pouring into his apartment from the unit below and found resident manager Oren Strasser in the hallway.
"He was pulling the fire hose out of the wall and I helped drag it down to his unit," Mortz said.
He said Strasser started spraying water in the apartment but the smoke got thick so he went upstairs to evacuate his wife and son out of their own unit.
The Honolulu Fire Department was alerted to the fire at the Piikoi Plaza, 725 Piikoi St., at 2:18 p.m. when someone in the building pulled the fire alarm, said Capt. Kenison Tejada, HFD spokesman. Firefighters got the fire under control by 2:33 p.m., he said.
The damage estimate is $50,000. The cause is under investigation.